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Concerns for whales with new port plans

Centrex Metals plan for Port Spencer has now changed to have a barge move material to a ship offshore.

Centrex Metals

A conservationist says the option to use transhipping to export mineral commodities from Port Spencer on South Australia's Eyre Peninsula won't reduce environmental risk.

Yesterday, Centrex Metals Limited released an alternative option to its port development, which transfers product from a smaller barge to an offshore vessel.

Centrex says this will mean less infrastructure would be built in the water.

But conservationist and documentary maker Dan Monceaux says it could pose a greater risk to southern right whales.

"The concern is that transhipping actually results in more vessel movements on the surface, so while the main vessel to be loaded is further off shore, you've got more movements of barges between the shore and the vessel to load it, so there's more opportunity there for ship strike or disturbance to southern right whales."

Centrex chief executive officer Ben Hammond says the new plan will mean less infrastructure would be built in the water and there shouldn't be any marine concerns.

"With any new design, we have to review its merits, and again, all I can say is that the exact operation is already occurring in Whyalla and has been ongoing for 12 months or more."

The project has conditional approval from both the federal and state governments.